Gandalf The Grey Staff Views
When writing The Hobbit in the early 1930s Tolkien gave the name Gandalf to the leader of the Dwarves, the character later called Thorin Oakenshield. The name is taken from the same source as all the other Dwarf names (save Balin) in The Hobbit: the Catalogue of Dwarves in the Völuspá.[4] The Old Norse name Gandalfr incorporates the words gandr meaning wand , staff or (especially in compounds) magic and álfr elf .
Tolkien discusses the characteristics of Gandalf in his essay on the Istari, which appears in the work Unfinished Tales. He describes Gandalf as the last of the wizards to appear in Middle-earth, one who: seemed the least, less tall than the others, and in looks more aged, grey-haired and grey-clad, and leaning on a staff . Yet the Elf Círdan who met him on arrival nevertheless considered him the greatest spirit and the wisest and gave him the elven Ring of power called Narya, the Ring of Fire, containing a red stone for his aid and comfort. Tolkien explicitly links Gandalf to the element Fire later in the same essay:
Gandalf the Grey was the last of the Istari to arrive in Middle-earth, landing in Mithlond. He seemed the oldest and least in stature of them, but Círdan the Shipwright felt that he had the highest inner greatness on their first meeting in the Havens, and gave him Narya, the Ring of Fire. Saruman learned of the gift and resented it. Gandalf hid the ring well, and it was not widely known until he left with the other ring-bearers at the end of the Third Age that he, and not Círdan, was the holder of the third of the Elven-rings.
The Old Norse name Gandalfr appears in the list of dwarves in the Völuspá of the Elder Edda; the name means cane-elf, or wand-elf. Tolkien took the name along with the dwarves names when he wrote The Hobbit in the 1930s. He came to regret the creation of this rabble of eddaic-named dwarves, [...] invented in an idle hour (The Return of the Shadow:452), since it forced him to come up with an explanation of why Old Norse names should be used in Third Age of Middle-earth. He solved the dilemma in 1942 by the explanation that Old Norse was a translation of the language of Dale. The figure of Gandalf has other influences from Germanic mythology, particularly Odin in his incarnation as the Wanderer , an old man with one eye, a long white beard, a wide brimmed hat, and a staff. Tolkien states that he thinks of Gandalf as an Odinic wanderer in a letter of 1946 (Letters no. 107). Gandalf is also similar to Väinämöinen, a Bard in Finnish mythology.
Gandalf The Grey Staff Images
